NIH Grant Culture Hinders Medical Research

Updated Sept. 2, 2005 12:01 a.m. ET

The peer-reviewed grant system in place at the National Institutes of Health funds safety and mediocrity ("Cash Injection: As Universities Get Billions in Grants, Some See Abuses," page one, Aug. 16). Innovative, ground-breaking proposals don't make it successfully through the grant-scoring system. It is an open secret in the scientific community that there are two ways of doing innovative work with government funding: Lie about what you plan to do with the money, or do the experiments first, then apply for the grant and use the money for different experiments, the results of which can be used to apply for...